Pentagon Searches for ‘Digital DNA’ to Identify Hackers
• By Noah Shachtman
• January 26, 2010 |
• 10:40 am |
• Categories: Info War
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/01/pentagon-searches-for-digital-dna-to-identify-hackers/
One of the trickiest problems in cyber security is trying to figure
who’s really behind an attack. Darpa, the Pentagon agency that created
the Internet, is trying to fix that, with a new effort to develop the
“cyber equivalent of fingerprints or DNA” that can identify even the
best-cloaked hackers.
The recent malware hit on Google and other U.S. tech firms showed once
again just how hard it is to pin a network strike on a particular
person or group. Engineers are pretty sure the attack came from China,
and it sure was sophisticated enough to come from a state military
like China’s. But it’s hard to say conclusively that the People’s
Liberation Army launched the strike.
It’s the kind of problem Darpa will try to solve with its “Cyber
Genome” project. The idea “is to produce revolutionary cyber defense
and investigatory technologies for the collection, identification,
characterization, and presentation of properties and relationships
from collected digital artifacts of software, data, and/or users,” the
agency announced late Monday.
These “digital artifacts” will be collected from “traditional
computers, personal digital assistants, and/or distributed information
systems such as ‘cloud computers’,” as well as “from wired or wireless
networks, or collected storage media. The format may include
electronic documents or software (to include malicious software -
malware).”
Ultimately, Darpa wants to develop the “digital equivalent of
genotype, as well as observed and inferred phenotype in order to
determine the identity, lineage, and provenance of digital artifacts
and users.”
“In other words,” The Register’s Lew Page notes, “any code you write,
perhaps even any document you create, might one day be traceable back
to you - just as your DNA could be if found at a crime scene, and just
as it used to be possible to identify radio operators even on
encrypted channels by the distinctive ‘fist’ with which they operated
their Morse keys. Or something like that, anyway.”
The Cyber Genome project kicks off this week with a conference in
Virginia.
_______________________________________________
Infowarrior mailing list
Infowarrior@attrition.org
https://attrition.org/mailman/listinfo/infowarrior
